Hazardous Waste of Time by Martin Higgins

The tragic collapse of the dot-com universe was responsible for my return to construction work. Although the e-commerce company I had worked for was one of the premier producers of award-winning smoke and high quality mirrors, it now is a pile of economic rubble, which brings me to my present job.

I joined the son of a close friend restoring and improving a home his mom had bought in Berkeley. He is knowledgeable and experienced in the construction trades, and was, for the sake of building permit sanity, listed as the owner/builder. He’s also in his mid-twenties, which makes me thirty years older than my boss, but I was more than happy to be his hired hand.

A “foundation up” renovation of a 1940s era duplex is a huge beast of a job. But in California—specifically Berkeley, California—it looms even larger, swollen by complicated local building codes, inflamed by moody inspectors, and antagonized by hermit/anarchist/activist neighbors who haven’t had any fun since rioting through the ’60s and swapping LSD for STDs.

Once the building’s seismic retrofit, shear walls, fire doors, flame blocks, egress modifications, alarm systems, and framing upgrades were all well underway, I began replacing the plumbing. When I pulled the water heaters, I inadvertently pulled the plug on our progress. Two plaster-like tubes led up from the top of the heaters, eventually disappearing through the roof of the house.

“Asbestos exhaust stacks. They’ve gotta go,” said my brawny partner, shaking his head, “Build a coffin and set them aside until we do a HazMat dump.”

I spent the next couple hours building a plywood box, carefully disassembling the deathly white pipes (while wearing protective gloves and a respirator), and sealing the carcinogen carrying cylinders in the hobby-shop casket.

The Environmental Protection Agency reference A340/1-90-019 in the code book provided an appropriate epitaph: “The Asbestos NESHAP requires facility owners and/or operators involved in demolition and renovation activities to control emissions of particulate asbestos to the outside air because no safe concentration of airborne asbestos has ever been established.”

Biohazard in a box. So it sat next to the house, covered with a tarp until I made arrangements to dispose of it properly. Later that week, during a routine run to the dump, I mentioned the asbestos pipes to the weighmaster. “Don’t bring it here!” he yelled, “I wanna’ retire from this job!” This was my first clue that I might have a problem getting rid of the toxic tubes.

Months passed, and the house went through a miraculous transformation thanks to a lot of hard work and attention to detail. As the final building inspection date approached, I called the local Hazardous Waste facility in Oakland only to find that it serviced each surrounding county on a revolving schedule.

The Berkeley residential HazMat collection was scheduled later that month, so I penciled it in my calendar and gathered up other items to drop off while I was there: old cans of paint, outdated insecticides, used motor oil, dried-out adhesives, and a mysterious mayonnaise jar filled with what looked like curdled milk and wingnuts.

On the drop-off date, I carefully loaded the Box of Death in my pickup truck with the other hazardous items and drove a few freeway stops to Oakland. As I drove, I wondered if the wind was finding its way into the seams of the sarcophagus, lifting microscopic asbestos fibers from the pipes and streaming them into the traffic behind me.

I glanced up at the rearview mirror and saw an SUV tailgating me. The driver was a talking on a cell phone and not paying attention to anything but her fingernails. I imagined the combined effects of asbestos and microwave radiation. When I saw a couple of kids bouncing up and down in the backseat, I signaled a lane change and pulled in front of a Lexus driven by a man in his 40s smoking a cigar. I was pretty sure I recognized him from the cover of a glory days dot com magazine. Bingo.

The Oakland Household Hazardous Waste facility is a tiny building and warehouse on the Oakland/Alameda border. If Oakland wanted to annoy Alameda, the Oakland Household Hazardous Waste facility was the perfect way to do it. Around the perimeter of the property were storage sheds covered with cryptic diamond-shaped signs, indecipherable alphanumeric codes, and dire warnings: Caustic! Flammable! Explosive! Corrosive! Biohazard! and the caution du jour, Asbestos! Cancer and Lung Disease Hazard! Yoo-hoo, Alameda!

I joined a line of autos that led up to the collection center where workers in white jumpsuits, protective boots, safety glasses, hats, and head rags unloaded and sorted containers from each vehicle. Their manner was so casual that they resembled a Rap posse onstage, swaggering back and forth, yelling out instructions, and striking poses as they identified each item. A hand lettered sign announced: Drivers are not allowed out of their vehicles for safety. I thought, “So, they would be allowed out of their vehicles for danger?” I watched the HazMat posse’s jive choreography sync up with John Mayer singing No Such Thing on my truck’s radio.

After waiting in line for twenty minutes, I was directed to pull into the unloading area. The workers swarmed around the pickup bed and quickly sorted the containers by type onto rolling wagons. The mayonnaise jar was relegated to a box full of other mayonnaise jars filled with indiscernible contents.

They ignored the cancer box, so I yelled out, “The wooden box has asbestos pipes!” They froze for a moment, then yelled out, “Asbestos!” which brought a supervisor jogging out of the warehouse up to the window of my truck.

When I called the Altamont Landfill, a very helpful woman informed me that prior to arriving, I must wrap each piece of pipe in 6 mm plastic sheeting and seal every seam with duct tape. Upon arriving, I had to be “profiled” to acquire the appropriate acceptance form and get delivery instructions.

I returned to my construction site and, once again in protective gear, wrapped each pipe in a shiny black shroud of plastic and sealed them with silver duct tape. Now, the pipes looked like some high-tech equipment on its way to NASA rather than debris destined for the dump. I laid them back in the box, screwed the top back on and headed for Altamont, about 45 miles away.

As I drove, I thought about the Rolling Stones film Gimme’ Shelter, which focused on the free Rock concert at Altamont Speedway in 1969. A man in the audience was murdered by Hell’s Angels who were hired as security guards for what turned out to be a very violent event, and has since been regarded as, “the end of the Summer of Love.” If I had been headed to the San Clemente Landfill I would have probably been thinking about Nixon; Memphis Landfill, Elvis; Phnom Penh Landfill, Pol Pot.

I looked at my rearview mirror to check the box in my pickup bed as a Marlboro merchandise promotion van pulled into the lane behind me and rode my rear bumper. The driver wore an outsized cowboy hat and faded denim jacket. Perfect.

At the Altamont freeway exit, I slowed and followed the winding two-lane asphalt for several miles into the pristine countryside. Horses, cows, dogs, hawks, and crows were oblivious to the lethal load I was bringing into their midst. I wondered what type of containment canister would eventually hold my cargo. Fifty-five gallon steel drums set in cement? A concrete bunker? A fortified Con-Ex shipping container in some subterranean vault?

Whatever it was, it must keep its contents from reaching living beings and our water supply. I had faith. There were several government agencies guiding the process—unseen environmental guardians hovered over me. No doubt there would be concerned clerks and paperwork standing between me and a toxic dump.

I trusted.

I stopped for a moment at the landfill gate, then followed official looking signs to the receiving office and parked at the far end of the lot.

When I announced to the receptionist what I had, I was shown to a desk and presented with several forms to fill out. To simplify the process, I claimed that I was the “generator” of the waste and also the “customer.” I was told that the type of asbestos I had was less hazardous than “friable,” or loose particle asbestos. My “nonfriable” asbestos disposal would cost $27, but I would be able to use my “profile” to return with additional loads for the next 11 months. That’s a scant $2.25 a month for the right to dump carcinogens legally.

A few minutes later I was given a computer generated ticket and a long white strip of plastic. The Hazardous Waste woman directed me to the scale house. “Have a nice day,” she said, as I tied the white plastic flag to the side view mirror and drove up the hill. Huge tractor-trailers full of garbage chugged up the incline ahead of me and filled the air with their black diesel smoke. We climbed that mountain of garbage until, at the top, they turned off to a special dumping area and I rolled on to the scale house.

“Will I be able to leave the box here too?” I asked the manager, unsure what procedure I was about to undertake.

He squinted and shrugged, “Yeah. I mean, if it was me I would.” then waved me on down a packed dirt road that ended in a turn to the right or left. At this fork, a man directed trucks to turn one way or the other after determining their load. He stood about five feet tall with a scruffy hardhat, reflective safety vest, and big friendly smile. When he saw my white flag, he waved to me enthusiastically.

“Hold on, hold on, hold on!” he shouted, “You got asbestos?”

I grinned and nodded, prepared for the worst.

“Okay then,” he said, pointing to a group of people dumping yard waste and household rubbish. “Dump it right over there!”

I waved back at him, assuming he had not heard me correctly. “I said ‘Yes, I do have asbestos.’”

“Okay,” he said, happily repeating his instruction, “right over there!”

I couldn’t believe it. I was being told to put the poison pipes in with the coffee grounds and eggshells, headless Pichachu dolls and smashed TVs, holey underwear and unmatchable socks? We’re talkin’ nonfriable cancer here, Buddy; Tumor-Helper in the box.

Another dumpsite attendant waved me in, but I was still cautious, so I casually said “Asbestos, right?” and he pointed to the trash, “Wherever you like.

As I pulled the box from the bed of my truck onto the ground, I tried to rationalize what I had just gone through. Wrapping, sealing, boxing, driving an hour into the country, filling out forms, and having my profile recorded for posterity. I looked around at the seagulls picking through the trash, the kids helping their parents empty the family car, the attendants strolling around looking for misplaced treasures, and the gargantuan bulldozers crushing and piling the rubbish according to some arcane plan.

I’m sure what I did was correct according to the rules, but it didn’t seem right.

I got back in the pickup and drove back toward the scale house. In the rearview mirror I watched one of the gigantic bulldozers roll right over my Box of Death, crushing it flat, then backing up and flattening it further. The driver then used the immense shovel on the front of the dozer to lift the squashed box and a bunch of other garbage up and let it drop from on high. I saw tiny pieces of the brittle white pipes fall to the ground, followed by a cloud of dust and strips of black plastic stuck together with duct tape.

The dust moved in a whirlwind past a Mom, Dad, and daughter who stood on the bed of their pickup tossing black garbage bags onto heap. They laughed and joked with the casual glee that some people exhibit when dumping their junk. My eyes itched. I’m sure it was psychosomatic, but I had a cartoon-like mental image of microscopic glasslike fibers swirling in the breeze, blowing in the bulldozer exhaust, and carried into the sky on seagull wings.

EPA reference A340/1-90-019 clearly states “No safe concentration of airborne asbestos has ever been established.” But sitting in my truck at the dump and repeating it aloud, it now sounded less like a scientific shortcoming and more like the basis for courtroom denials and excuses.

I stared at the people, the dust cloud, and the ‘dozer in anger. Not a righteous anger, ignited by this mockery of logic and law, but a mounting rage because I had been had. Duped by the regulators, conned by the clerks, and manipulated into joining a $27-per year deception. People were breathing asbestos because of addle-brained bureaucracy and my unwitting delivery. I simmered, looking to vent, but it was all so futile.

The cloud moved on and so did I.

As I drove past the scale house, the weigh master gave me a smile and nod to send me on my way. As I headed down the garbage mountain, the white plastic flag on my mirror fluttered in the wind. I reached out and yanked it off, thinking, Surrender. How appropriate and let it fly from my fingers into the swirling dust behind my tailgate.